North American drilling: Is the sky the limit? ///

UNITED STATES
Well, it’s becoming obvious that the promise, "If we just get one more boom, we won’t $*#@ it up this time," just cannot be kept. Some combination of greed, ingenuity and market forces – and especially $75 oil – compels folks to scrape together whatever rigs they can, borrow money to build new ones, and drill, drill, drill. One thing is clear: The double-digit increases that we now see cannot be sustained. The best we can hope for is a soft creaming of the growth curve, back to single-digit growth, something that we can live with indefinitely. Overall though, the first half of this year shows the boom on a straight line to the sky. As we digested the numbers, state-by-state, district-by-district, there were some "disconnects" found, between what was, and what should be.
Operator surveys. This update of World Oil’s February survey includes 18 major US drillers (integrated companies and independents with large drilling programs) and 158 independents.